Australian/Israeli collaboration on drug resistance
Microbiologists from Flinders University in Adelaide and the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) in Israel are teaming up to study how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.
Infectious bacteria such as E. coli and Staphylococcus have certain mechanisms by which they block and flush out drugs, causing drug resistance. Professor Melissa Brown, Head of the Flinders Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Cluster and Associate Dean (Research) in the School of Biological Sciences, explained that the proteins which make up the bacteria act as a ‘pump’.
“As antibiotics get into the cell these proteins pump the drugs out before they can act, since the purpose of the drugs is to kill the bacteria and the bacteria obviously want to survive, so the pumps are their arsenal,” she said. This can cause multidrug resistance and “presents a serious obstacle for treating many cancers and infectious diseases”, Professor Brown said.
If the researchers can understand the molecular structure and mechanisms of the proteins, they believe they could deconstruct the blocks by modifying the otherwise ineffective antibiotics so they can “either not be recognised by the proteins or bypass them entirely”, said Professor Brown. This would mean reactivating existing drugs which currently can’t be used against certain bacteria, which would be particularly advantageous as “finding new drugs is really hard … it costs a lot of money and it doesn’t happen often”.
The researchers are also interested in understanding the proteins’ mechanisms for their own sake, as they have been less characterised by scientists than other transport mechanisms. WIS’s Professor Eitan Bibi said the pumps have “mechanical characteristics that differ substantially from those of chemically specific transport systems. Our collaborative research program will help us better understand the differences between certain groups of multidrug pumps and how they evolved.”
The project has received $140,000 in funding through Weizmann Australia.
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